A New Perspective on the Baptism of John (Acts 18:23- 19:7)

Paul arrives back in Antioch after the second missionary tour and then it seems to my reading he leaves again after a relatively short time. He retraces his route travelled in the second tour, over the mountains into Galatia, revisiting the churches he had helped plant on his first trip: Derbe, Lystra to Iconium, all in sequence Luke tells us. Paul comes to Phrygia where he probably visited the Bereans before going on to Ephesus.  Luke tells us the reason for the trip was to help the believers in those regions to stand fast (episthrizon).  This indicates something had arisen which threatened to upset the peace and unity of the Asian and Greek churches.  

What was the possible threat to which Paul was responding? Luke either didn’t know or he uses the account of the conversion of Apollos in which he alludes to the problem.  Apollos was a Jew native to Alexandria, Egypt.  He is described as a man of great learning and eloquent speech. Apollos arrived in Ephesus about the same time as Paul.  Apollos is a kind of evangelist, able to incite great passion and fervor talking about the Messiah of the Old Testament Scriptures. We are then given this detail at the end of verse 25; “he knew only the baptism of John.”  

What does this mean? It’s apparently important enough that Aquila and Priscilla take him aside and school him in Apostolic Christianity. Paul goes so far as to require his re-baptism.  Is Paul primarily concerned about baptismal liturgy is there something more important going on here?   

Apollos knew about the ministry of Jesus. Luke writes in 18:25 that he had been “catechized” in the way of the Lord so that he was able to speak and teach about Jesus.  For Paul, the problem was that Apollos and the disciples with him knew nothing about the Holy Spirit (19:2), although they are described as very fervent in their own spirit (18:25). Apollos had evidently never been baptized as a Christian, or if he had been baptized, there was something irregular that was important enough for Paul to require him to be re-baptized.  He had only received the “baptism of repentance” (19:4). 

What was Apollos teaching? When Paul preached about Jesus the Messiah, the Jews tried to kill him.  But Apollos is welcomed in the synagogues of Ephesus (18:26).  How could these itinerant preachers talk so correctly about Jesus but not infuriate the Jews? 

Apollos knew that John the Baptist had identified Jesus as the Messiah.  Apollos knew the Lord’s parables and teachings.  He probably had a general knowledge of the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus.  He may have been familiar with some of the early written sources circulating in the growing Christian movement.  But I think in his presentations, he played down some things and emphasized others so as not to create a problem with the Jews.

 In Acts 22, we may find a clue to how Apollos could talk about Jesus in the Jewish synagogues of Europe without raising their ire.  This is the account of Paul in Jerusalem facing a mob of angry Jews who have been incited to riot on the basis of false charges (Acts 21:27-31).  These rioters are not teachers and elders, but ordinary people.  Notice how Paul speaks to them as a pious Jew.  The mob listens as he establishes his Jewish credentials: born a Jew, taught by the greatest Rabbi of the age, zealous toward the law, a persecutor himself of these “people of the Way” (22:3-5).  He relates his vision of Jesus on the Road to Damascus and how Ananias,  a man devout in the law and of impeccable reputation among the Jewish community in Damascus (22:12), says, “The God of our fathers has shown you that you should know His will and see the Just One and hear the voice of his mouth.”  That’s Old Testament language.  Ananias tells Paul to be baptized for the washing away of sins (the baptism of repentance) and call on the name of the Lord (22:16).  Paul next sees Jesus in the Temple itself.   So far, the crowd is OK with all this.  But when Paul says his mission was to go to the Gentiles, the mob erupts and tries to kill him (22:22).

The message of Paul that riled up the Jews was not that Jesus was the Messiah, but that the Gentiles were being accepted by God.  The Jewish God was supposed to hate Gentiles and force their submission to the Jewish King of the World.  I think Apollos talked like Paul; using Jewish circumlocutions from the Old Testament to speak of the Servant of God.  Like Paul in Acts 22, I imagine Apollos probably played down the cross (a stumbling block for the Jews) and spoke of miracles that proved Jesus was Messiah; that he was resurrected from the dead, and had been last seen ascending into heaven with the promise that he would return.  For Jews this meant the end of the world, the establishment of a Davidic King on the throne of Israel, the elevation of Jews in a new world order, and the Gentile world beating a path to the Temple.  John’s preaching had a strong ethical and moral component. Stop cheating. Start sharing. Get your house in order! Now is the time to change! The Greek word for change is metanoia – translated in our Bibles as “repentance.”  Let me suggest that Apollos and many others in that part of the world had left the comforts of home to travel throughout Europe warning about the end of the age.

This resonated with Europeans.  Soothsaying was at the heart of European mystery cults, fortune telling, predicting the future. No wonder European Jews listened intently to these learned men unpack the prophecies of Daniel and Ezekiel in light of the Messianic ministry of Jesus.  But you had to be initiated into the meaning of the symbols if you were going to understand them. You had to have the code-breaking gnosis – insider knowledge. To join the insider group you submitted to the baptism of repentance; you committed yourself to be ethical and morally pure.  Christian Gnosticism became a major heresy in the church by the end of the first century, abandoning its apocalyptic message and creating metaphysical myths about the divine and human nature of Christ.  But this is an early Gnostic movement that Paul has set out to combat on his third tour in the middle of first century.  Like dispensationalists of our day, these Old Testament scholars unpacked the meaning of apocalyptic signs and prepared people to escape the fiery Day of Judgment.  Their message was so urgent that other doctrinal issues paled in comparison.

The Ministry of the Holy Spirit

Baptism for Paul was about much more than repentance.  It was about receiving the Holy Spirit as the sign and seal of your Covenant relationship in Christ.  What is the story of Acts if not the Gospel of the Holy Spirit?

Apollos did not know about the Gospel of John in which Jesus tells his followers about the coming of the Paraclete (John 16:5ff.).  This word is translated so many ways: Comforter, Counselor, Helper, and the most ridiculous of all, The Friend.  Paraclete literally means, “one called alongside.”  It was a legal term for your defense attorney.  Jesus said the reason he had to leave the world was so that the Paraclete could come (John 16:7).  The Paraclete is the Holy Spirit, the Binding Agent of Father and Son that will bind you to Jesus.  The ministry of the Holy Spirit is four-fold, Jesus said.

1.       The Spirit convicts people of sin; the Spirit acts through the proclamation of the Gospel to effectually call those who belong to Christ.

2.       The Spirit mediates the righteousness of Christ to the elect; the Holy Spirit awakens faith, regenerates hearts, justifies completely the sinner, and becomes the spirit of adoption.

3.       The Spirit judges the worldlings, lets them know of the coming wrath and the emptiness of life apart from God (John 16:8).

4.       The Spirit enables us to know the will of God and do it (16:13).

So, without knowledge of the Holy Spirit and the inner assurance of his presence and power in the believer’s life, one can only question the authenticity of their Christian calling.

I do not think it coincidental that it was at this point on his third missionary tour that Paul wrote his great theological treatise to the Romans, with its emphasis on the believer’s life in the Holy Spirit, imputing the righteousness of Christ by faith alone, and not by works.  “Justification by faith through Christ alone” is the watchword that exposes the error of this cult. 

Is the baptism of repentance still around today? Has it pervaded our congregations? Any group that emphasizes human tradition more than the Holy Spirit, that chokes on the name of Jesus preferring to speak only about “Christ,” quotes the Scriptures as duty rather than as grace, administers sacraments as though they possess magical power in and of themselves thus denying the work of the Holy Spirit to impute the righteousness of Christ to the individual believer and overcome sin, or any group that teaches human devotion as a substitute for grace cannot be authentically Christian.  We can know what Jesus said and not be a Christian.  We can be baptized and not be a Christian.  We can be devout and not be a Christian.  But you can’t be a Christian and be unsure about your salvation, ignorant of the Holy Spirit, uncaring for the will of God, or primarily focused on yourself.